PLAN YOURSELF An Analysis of the Effectiveness of an Enhanced Grocery Shopping Lists on Food Waste Reduction Elena Stocco January 16

PLAN YOURSELF

An Analysis of the Effectiveness of an Enhanced Grocery Shopping

Lists on Food Waste Reduction

“Plan” Yourself

An Analysis of the Effectiveness of an Enhanced Grocery Shopping

Lists on Food Waste Reduction.

University of Groningen

Faculty of Economics and Business

MSc Marketing Management

Master Thesis

January 2017

First supervisor: Dr. Jenny van Doorn

Second supervisor: Dr. Marit Drijfhout

Elena Stocco

Student number: S3039048

Telephone: +31 611 200 815

e-mail:

e.stocco@student.rug.nl

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the effectiveness of the use of enhanced shopping list, a more detailed version compared to commonly used ones, on the amount of household food waste, to analyse whether it could be a useful way to reduce the extent of this issue. Furthermore, it will be assessed to what extent personality traits and individuals believes may have a moderator effect on the compliance and, consequently, the effectiveness of the tool: high conscientiousness is hypothesized to increase the effectiveness of the tool, while high impulsiveness is supposed to reduce it; environmental concern, being linked with a higher involvement of individuals with the problem, is also expected to increase the positive effect of using a list. The test was conducted among the customers of a Dutch supermarket: one group of randomly selected respondents, as the treatment group, received the enhanced shopping list, a questionnaire and a food waste diary; the other group, as the control one, only received a questionnaire and a food waste diary. The results of the analysis were not supportive of the hypothesized outcomes, as in all the run regression analyses the main variable (received shopping list) was found to be non-significant: this can be due to the small sample size, due to the low number of respondents that returned the questionnaire, which influenced the relationships and the interactions results of tests. The only supported result was the positive effect of high environmental concern in the reduction of household food waste amount, suggesting that an accurate education about the environmental consequences of our decisions and our actions may be helpful in facing the issue.

Keywords: food waste, environment, enhanced shopping list, grocery shopping, personality

MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

Food waste is becoming more and more relevant today, and needs to be addressed in an effective way: while in poor countries the population is subject to food restrictions that cause hunger and nutritional deficits, especially in Western countries large quantities of food end up wasted due to different causes (FAO, WFP. IFAD, 2012). Waste occurs at any stage of the food production, processing and distribution, but especially at the household level (Parfitt et al., 2010): many internal and external factors affect the level of household food waste, such as marketing policies or demographic and socio-economic factors, but an important part may be played by individuals’ attitudes and behaviours as well (Aschemann-Witzel, de Hooge and Normann, 2016; Farr-Warthon et al., 2014). Finding a successful tool to help the consumer having a stronger control over his behaviour can be a successful way to face this problem. In this study the following problem statement will be investigated: “To what extent does an enhanced shopping list have an impact on household

food waste? An investigation of how the employment of this tool can help to reduce this issue and how personality traits and environmental attitude can influence with this relationship.”. The

PREFACE

This thesis was written as one of the conclusive steps to complete my Master studies in Marketing Management at the University of Groningen. During the last months I have worked at this project, to analyse whether shopping lists may be a useful tool in reducing food waste. Since minimizing waste have always been a fundamental element of my education and environmental issue are very relevant to me, I feel very close to this issue, therefore it has been particularly meaningful to work on this topic.

I want to thank all the people who helped me and made it possible to reach this step.

First of all, I want to thank my first supervisor Jenny van Doorn, for her feedbacks and her suggestions, that were extremely useful and helpful in finalizing this work. I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Marit Drijfhout, for the interesting initial advices she gave me.

Furthermore, I want to thank Merinde Van de Ven, Sytze Boskma, Marloes Keuning, Laura Mulder and Alberto Folini, that worked with me in this thesis group. Thank you for the hard work you put to realize this research and for the constant help, that has been fundamental in some phases. Last but not least, I want to thank Liviu Lalo, that even if working on a different topic was constantly supporting me through the writing process of this work and through my whole master.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

A

2

M

S

3

P

5

1. I

7

2. L

R

12

2.1 Household Food Waste 12

2.2 Use of Shopping Lists to Plan Grocery Shopping 14

2.3 Personality Traits 16 2.3.1 Conscientiousness 17 2.3.2 Impulsiveness 18 2.4 Environmental Concern 18

3. C

M

21

4. M

26

4.1 Sample and Data Collection 26

4.2 Questionnaire and Moderators 26

4.3 Scale Validation 29 4.4 Data Analysis 31

5. R

32

5.2 Efficacy of the Tool 34

5.3 Impact of the Moderators 35

5.4 Hypotheses Test Results 38

6. D

C

39

6.1 General Discussion 39

6.2 Managerial Implications 41

6.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Researches 42

R

44

A

A

48

A

B

49

1. INTRODUCTION

Food waste is today a paramount issue, which requires everyone’s conjoint efforts in the search of an effective solutions that will help reducing its extent. The growing spread of huge supermarket chains, together with the easier affordability of food items in Western countries, has contributed to the growth of this phenomenon, especially in the last decades. Nevertheless, the loss of food items in developed countries, has the side effect to exacerbate the difficulties encountered by those living in developing countries in accessing food resources. In poorer countries, nutritional deficit is still a major problem, and the majority of the population suffers from starvation and food deprivation. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) about 868 million people suffer from undernourishment, about 12,5% of the global population (FAO, WFP. IFAD, 2012). This represent a steep contrast with the edible supply wastage registered in other countries: it is estimated that 1.3 billion tons of food have gone to waste, about one-third of the total food production (Gustavsson et al., 2011).

According to the study conducted by the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (Gustavsson et al., 2011), the lack of knowledge about proper harvesting, livestock and first storage techniques, especially in the poorest countries, causes the greatest losses in the first stages of the chain, where farmers and workers need to be thought better procedures to improve their work. On the other hand, in richer countries, the greatest part of the wastage takes place in the final stages of the chain, during the retail and household consumption phase. Here losses come from a different lack of knowledge: marketers often implement strategies aimed at pushing the consumers to buy more than needed, and customers often do not know how to store and use their purchased goods (Aschemann-Witzel, de Hooge and Normann, 2016). Lack of knowledge about proper food storage and misinterpretation of labels, together with packaging attributes are all reasons that contributes to this phenomenon (Aschemann-Witzel et al., 2016), and increase the likelihood of excessive buying behaviours. Poor or inattentive household shopping organizational ability leads consumers to routinely buy some food without experiencing any learning effect from one grocery shopping trip to the next one, or to be subject to impulse buying behaviour. Farr-Warthon et al. (2014) in their study highlight how often customers are unaware of household storage when they perform weekly grocery shopping trip, resulting in buying items that they didn’t need. Cultural and situational backgrounds may likewise have an impact on purchase decisions (Farr-Warthon et al., 2014). Cultural environment can contribute to a stronger mindfulness, and people can be more concerned about avoiding waste in some countries, whereas in others it may happen more easily because of the different cultural approach with food. Moreover, one person’s attitudes and believes have a strong impact on his decisions and behaviour, and individual personal traits may play an important role as well, as it has been explained by Hirsh & Doldermann (2007) which explain the differences between two possible buying behaviours, Consumerism and Environmentalism.

turn planned behaviour into performed behaviour. Using shopping list has been reported to be helpful aiding consumers to avoid buying things they do not need, as they have to engage into a careful planning activity; thus in this study the effectiveness of enhanced shopping lists on household food wastage amount will be tested.

Customers’ characteristics can influence their likelihood to employ a list and comply to it, which can be ascribed to the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). According to TPB, behavioural intentions are influenced by three factors, namely attitudes towards the behaviour (individual evaluation of performing the behaviour), subjective norms (social pressure that one feel toward acting in a certain way), and perceived behavioural control (how easy or difficult to perform a certain behaviour is perceived) (De Groot & Steg, 2007).

Some individuals may be more prone to plan their behaviour and to comply with previous decisions. This may be influenced by personality traits: two different personality traits will be tested, conscientiousness and impulsiveness. These two different personality traits originate two different approaches in the way to act during their grocery shopping trips, and have an impact on unplanned purchase. Conscientiousness is associated with a higher tendency to plan actions and fulfil previous intentions, consequently a highly conscientious person will be able to have a higher control over his behaviour and will also feel a higher influence from the perceived social norms regarding his behaviour. On the other hand, highly impulsive individuals are characterized by quick unreflective actions, accomplished to satisfy suddenly triggered needs, without reasoning about consequences (Kacen & Lee, 2012), leading them not to be able to fully control their behaviour, and to feel less external pressure, at least in the spur of the moment. Previous researches have examined the personality trait effect on the likelihood to surrender to immediate desires, but no more detailed analysis can be found on how personality traits can be correlated with the likelihood of following a shopping list: hence, it can be relevant to asses the real impact of this tool, and to analyse which repercussions this has on the wastage production.

think about environmental repercussion of their own actions may be more motivated to comply to the shopping list. The perception of being in control of one’s own action is a key determinant element of one’s behaviour, as explained by the perceived behavioural control (PBC) component of the TPB (De Groot & Steg, 2007): having a shopping list may help people to feel in possession of an instrument to act to improve this issue, and environmentally concerned individual may have a stronger motivation to follow it. Furthermore, different value orientations have been found to result into different consumer behaviours: Consumerism, which bring individuals to buy unaware of the possible repercussions; Environmentalism, where the consumer actively takes into account the external consequences of its own choices. While several researches have been conducted to link environmental concern with the attitude towards green consumption, it is hard to find previous study on how this attitude is directly related to people tendency to comply to the shopping list, with subsequent reflections on food waste amount, and that can be an interesting factor for the research.

1.1 Research question

The goal of this research can be outlined by the following research question:

To what extent does an enhanced shopping list have an impact on household food waste? An investigation of how the employment of this tool can help to reduce this issue and how personality

traits and environmental attitude can influence this relationship.

An enhanced shopping will be tested in this research (see Appendix A). The list is an “enhanced” one as it presents more features than the plain shopping list, to allow a more meticulous organization of the grocery shopping, by being divided in two parts: on the left side the days of the week are enumerated and there is some space where people can write down what they are going to do and their meal planning; on the right side there is space to appoint what requires to be bought, classified under food categories (vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy, etc.), so that the user can easily plan his shopping trip.

structuring grocery shopping trips, it rarely has been analysed the effect that the employment of this tool may have in reducing the amount of household food waste, which is the reason why in this study we will try to assess the effective usefulness.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

In the following chapter we will further analyse what previous researches have already examined and what has already been highlighted concerning the household food waste problem, in order to get a better outlook of the situation. Furthermore, we will be getting a deeper insight of existing findings regarding the other factors taken into account in our research, and analyse the existing literature gap relevant for this study.

2.1 Household food waste

As previously mentioned, even if the phenomenon of food loss is present at each step of the supply chain, the majority of it occurs at household level. Food waste at at the consumer level is due to a number of reasons, most of which are linked with over purchasing: some of them are related with strategies implemented by marketers and retailers, more focused on increasing their sales and on pushing customers to buy more and more, rather than towards socially beneficial outcomes, while others may be a consequence of family units’ characteristics, and may be divided into demographic and socio-economic factors.

Demographics factors, such as age and gender have been found to have a probable correlation with the amount of food waste produced. Results of studies concerning the relevance of gender have been conflicting, since women have been found to be responsible for a higher amount of food waste, but also to have a higher likelihood to engage in reducing food waste (Secondi et al., 2015). Age also seems to be related with the amount of waste produced, with household where older people were in charge for food preparation found to be able to significantly reduce the amount of food waste in comparison with families with younger members (Visschers et al., 2016). A possible reason for this result is that older people may have experienced hunger and food shortage during the wars or during restriction periods, and they lived through times where the access to certain food was not as easy as it is today, and consequently they value more edible resources.

harder for these family units to buy and cook the right amount. Household components’ characteristics may also be an impacting variable, as families with children seem to present higher wastages, as kids often do not finish their plate, or they are not consistent in the amount of food they want to eat from one time to the other one (Visschers et al., 2016). The number of grocery shopping trips in one week seems to be associated with waste level as well, as families performing more trips buy a lower quantity of products per time, in accordance with the effective need, and this demands a higher capability to dispose of them, while in households where grocery shopping was done just once a week the tendency to overbuy goods was a much more significant issue (Farr-Wharton et al., 2014). In this second approach, purchases often are performed in a routinized way to avoid running out of some items, without scrupulously planning the grocery shopping moment, resulting in a higher chance that part of this food will end to be spoiled (Visschers et al., 2016). Directly linked to that, the spending budget set aside for grocery shopping seems to be positively related with the amount of food wasted, as higher wastes are recorded in families where the grocery shopping budget is higher. Besides variables intrinsic to a specific household, extrinsic ones may have an impact as well, such as the governmental, economic, technological and cultural context where the family is set, in regard to which implemented policies and food prices have been found to be possible influential elements (Secondi et al., 2015).

date they get rid of the product without even opening it to test if it is actually spoiled or if it still good to be used (Aschemann-Witzel et al., 2016).

On top of that, it has often been highlighted how implemented marketing strategies can induce the consumer to buy larger quantities than those actually needed, and often consumers are attracted towards offers because they are afraid to run out of specific products or they are seduced by the chance to attaining a bargain. While for durable goods this can really help the customer to save money, for perishable ones this can be risky, because people may purchase excessive quantities that they will not be able to use before they reach their expiration date. Previous researches have highlighted how packaging size is often mentioned as one of the cause of wastage, since the quantity contained is too large compared with the true needs; another cause are pricing strategies and promotions, that for the above-named reasons might contribute to customers over purchasing and subsequently wasting some of the provisions (Aschemann-Witzel et al., 2016).

2.2 Use of shopping lists to plan grocery shopping

The aim of this study will be to assess the possible effectiveness of the use of enhanced shopping lists during grocery shopping trip, as an efficient tool to reduce household food waste. Most of the times individuals perform grocery shopping as part of their habitual weekly routine, and they engage in some kind of planning activity while deciding what to purchase: shopping lists are one of the most common and mostly diffused planning tool to fulfil this purpose.

When faced with a wide variety of options, people often rely on some expedients that may help them in successfully reach their goal, reminding them what needs to be done and how this is supposed to be accomplished. They may rely on internal memory aids, which are inner to individuals, like mental rehearsing or other mnemonic tricks, or on external memory aids, defined as exterior tangible helping devices, such as taking notes and writing things down (Block & Morwitz, 1999). Shopping lists belong to the second category of tools, and they are one of the most widespread memory aid: since grocery shopping is a routinize activity, and repetitive behaviours often require some sort of script that allow them to be performed in the same practical way, the shopping list writing process may be considered as a part of that scripted behaviour (Thomas & Garland, 2004), and its usage may be linked to a higher fulfilment efficiency.

Unplanned purchases can be divided into two different kinds, impulsive and opportunistic purchase. Impulsive purchases refer to spontaneous decisions performed to answer to a sudden need or desire that necessarily needs to be satisfied. Opportunistic ones refer to rational decisions triggered by an external stimulus that remind the consumer of a forgotten need (Massara et al., 2014). Nonetheless, while writing the list, people often do not precisely indicate all the specific items they will buy, but they may just state the general category, or they may neglect to put something in the list because its purchase is obvious and take place in every shopping trip: subsequently, it may be difficult to specifically spot what actually can be appointed as an unplanned behaviour (Block & Morwitz, 1999).

Nevertheless, it is easily noticeable that shopping lists are not always used by shoppers: some people may be more likely to follow scripts only during major grocery shopping trips, while others seldom recur to this device, despite the fact that they do engage as well in some kind of behavioural planning (Thomas & Garldand, 2004). This pre-planning activity for non-list users has been reported to be even more accurate in some case than that of list users, as people could be resorting to other devices, such as mental lists; furthermore, it would be too simplistic to reduce the propensity towards planning to the act of writing a lists, since often consumers do not even buy what planned or buy extra items compared to what was listed (Block & Morwitz, 1999; Bassett et al., 2008; Thomas & Garland, 2004).

Block and Morwitz (1999) have reported that shopping list are an effective tool when it comes to organize individuals’ future behaviours: they have recorded that consumers write on their lists approximately 40% of their future purchases, and that around 80% of items previously included in the list were afterwards actually purchased. Despite all these evidences, purchases often are made outside the lists, because of external stimuli that may trigger unforeseen desires in the mind of the consumer, or may remind him of other unrecognized needs.

2.3 Personality traits

2.3.1 Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness is a psychological trait associated with a higher propensity to follow socially prescribed norms, to exercise self-control, to be focused, to plan future behaviour and to avoid actions that may have bad outcome for the self or for others (Jackson et al., 2010). Highly conscientious people are more likely to be committed to their goals and plans, and feel a higher sense of responsibility toward work, family and community. Interestingly, these persons have been reported to be characterised by a better health conditions: with regard to this, it has also been found that changes in conscientiousness level are linked with a change in one’s well-being.

Several studies have more specifically investigated the trait, which has been described to include seven more specific facets: orderliness, industriousness, reliability, decisiveness, impulse control, formalness and conventionality (Jackson et al., 2010). All these adjectives denote individuals that are likely to be extremely engaged with planning in advance their future actions and to accurately follow previously made programs, because of the high social pressure they feel. Because this sense of responsibility is perceived in every sphere, conscientious people have been found to be more likely to organize their future purchases, and to consequently be more prone to employ shopping lists when planning grocery trips (Block & Morwitz, 1999).

Jackson et al. (2010) in their study have tried to investigate behaviours that identify conscientious individuals, in order to develop the Behavioural Indicators of Conscientiousness (BIC), to help them gaining a better understanding of the trait and to find alternative ways to identify the trait and to clarify why this trait leads to specific health and social life outcomes. In order to do that, they created a conscientious behaviour hierarchy which comprises eleven factors: avoid work, organization, impulsivity, antisocial, cleanliness, industriousness, laziness, appearance, punctuality, formality and responsibility. The different manifestations of these behaviours were found to be strongly related with the trait of conscientiousness, but not with other personality traits. Jackson et al. reported conscientious individuals to “be clean and tidy, work hard, follow the rules of society and social decorum, think before acting, and be clean” (Jackson et al., 2010). Nevertheless, results highlighted the fact that behaviours are not sufficient to be directly linked with a trait, and that it is important to verify how this trait is performed in a time span, as people may have the same latent trait level, but may be differentiated in the type and frequency of displayed behaviour. Their study though had to face various limitation, such as not including observer reports but only a self-assessment of the behaviour.

2.3.2 Impulsiveness

Impulsiveness has been defined as the predisposition to quickly react in an unplanned way in order to answer to sudden internal or external stimuli, without thinking about the consequences that this action would have for oneself or for others (Rousselle & Vigneau, 2016). This personality trait is linked with many psychiatric and behavioural problems, such as antisocial problems, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. A higher impulsive personality is directly linked with higher propensity to perform impulsive purchase, since impulsive individuals have been reported to be thrill-seeking, lacking in normative evaluation of appropriateness of engaging in a specific behaviour, as they are deeply influenced by their mood and strongly in need to satisfy suddenly triggered needs and desires (Kacen & Lee, 2002).

In order to assess this trait, the most commonly employed tool is the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS). The BIS is a self-evaluative test, that include 30 items, gathered into three impulsivity categories: absence of planning, motor impulsiveness and cognitive impulsiveness, which the subject has to rank on a 4 options frequency scale (rarely or never, occasionally, often, mostly or always). The absence of planning dimension refers to a lack of future planning behaviour, the motor impulsiveness to a propensity to act without thinking and the cognitive impulsiveness to a tendency to make quick decisions (Rousselle & Vigneau, 2016). Researches have highlighted how demographic factors such as age, gender and educational background are related with the BIS scores. Individuals who score high on the BIS, and thereby display a higher impulsivity trait, are more plausible to surrender to suddenly activated needs, and to be influenced by environmental stimuli. Notwithstanding, it has been found that normative social influence can be an important factor in reducing impulsive buying, since the fact that a specific behaviour is perceived as socially unacceptable can inhibit the actual fulfilment of the purchase (Rook & Fisher, 1995). This normative influence is much more likely to occur when the consumer is doing his grocery shopping with someone, since as to experience this kind of judgement the behaviour must be socially visible.

2.4 Environmental concern

self-construal (INDSC), which is related with those who have the desire to differentiate themselves from others and from the physical environment; the interdependent self-construal (INTSC), related with personalities that values a rich social network and values relationships, statues and roles; the metapersonal self-construal (METSC), just recently introduced, which describes personalities that feel profoundly interconnected with the surrounding environment and that have “a more transcendent, holistic and expansive view of the self” (Davis & Stroink, 2016). This last construct is reported to be related with a higher concern towards the common well-being, and to be more involved with environmental issues.

One of the other background factors that strongly determine one’s future behaviour, as reported by the Theory of Planned Behaviour, are individual attitude and life values, that strongly motivate people to act in a certain way (De Groot & Steg, 2007). The level of engagement different subjects experience and the attitude they display toward environmental issues is referred to as environmental concern: this could be expressed in several kinds of behaviours such as travelling behaviours, buying behaviours, recycling habits, participation in pro-environmental organization (Snelgar, 2006). Following the TPB, when people believe their behaviour can have positive consequences, can enhance their social approval and when they feel a strong control over their behaviour, they are more likely to engage in a specific behaviour, such as a pro-environmental one (Nguyen et al., 2016). While as we mentioned about this pro-environmental purchasing behaviour is more often oriented towards organic and green products purchase (Nguyen et al., 2016), an accurate assessment of how food items are then used and disposed of, as for example to the amount of food that ends to be wasted, is extremely relevant. Additionally, the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) states that when people are well informed about the outcomes of their actions, they manifest a stronger attention toward their behavioural intentions, the antecedent of the behaviour itself. Both theories are related to the concept that being aware of one’s actions will make people act more carefully, and evaluate more meticulously the possible repercussions of performed action: as a consequence, strongly environmentally concerned individuals will be more prone to fulfil the programs of the shopping list, being a way to allow them to have a better control over their purchasing behaviour.

actions on the surrounding environment. Environmentalism on the other hand refers to those whose decisions are taken cautiously, pondering the possible repercussion of their performed actions and thinking about the resulting outcomes: this second category can be clearly observed to display more caring and emphatic values, that make them feel a much deeper connection with the surroundings, and thus they display a higher environmental concern (Hirsh & Doldermann, 2007). The two constructs have likewise a direct impact on how people behave during their grocery shopping trip, and that may impact their amount of food waste: those who are more oriented towards Environmentalism will be more careful in their decision, and subsequently more prone to follow the plan made in advance, as they are aware of the possible outcomes of their action.

3. CONCEPTUAL MODEL

In the coming chapter the research question together with the conceptual model that constitutes the foundation of this research will be explained in detail. Additionally, the inferred hypotheses will be extensively explicated.

3.1 Hypotheses

Given all the previous variables, the resulting conceptual model has been developed, which lead to three resulting hypotheses:

possible. The device will be employed during the grocery shopping, but, to make the consumer more aware, lists can be used also at home: they can not only be written before going grocery shopping, but a sort of supplementary list may also be done at the end of the week, before the following grocery shopping trip, to see what leftovers remained in the fridge, what was thrown away for going to waste, or what was bought in too large quantities. This can help by giving knowledge of the right quantity that would have been sufficient and to avoid to buy again things that were not used at all. The use of a list will allow individuals to feel more in control of their future actions. According to the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), intentions are the main driver of individuals’ future behaviour (Conner & Abraham, 2001): the intention to act in a certain way is stronger when people think to have a deeper control over their actions, while on the other hand, when they feel a lack of resources in being able to exercise some form of control over their actions they will have a lower intention to perform the behaviour (Madden et al., 1992). Furthermore, behavioural intentions are determined by three factors: attitude towards the behaviour, how the performance of the behaviour is evaluated by the individual; subjective norms, the social pressure perceived to engage in a specific behaviour; perceived behavioural control (PBC), how difficult or easy to perform a person perceive the behaviour to be (De Groot & Steg, 2007). Making and using a shopping list requires a careful planning activity from individuals, thus it will impact the degree of difficulty that people associate with being able to control their purchasing behaviour during their shopping trips, and consequently it can make them feel more in control of their future behaviour. It can be perceived as a useful instrument to exercise a stronger auto-regulation power, impacting the PBC component of the behavioural intentions, and the enhanced resource availability may make individuals more likely to act accordingly to the predetermined programs, as it will seem easier to act in the desired way afterwards. Using an enhanced shopping list, which requires an even higher degree of planning will make people feel more involved in the behavioural regulation, and the result expected from the analysis is that by using shopping lists people will be better able to keep under control unplanned purchases. By being able to have a higher control over what they buy, consumer will thus manage to have the necessary quantities of products, and consequently will succeed in reducing the amount of wastage they produce:

Hypothesis 1: The use of an enhanced shopping list reduces household food waste.

involved as well. Additionally, other constructs are implicated in the process of determining future actions, such as individual attitude towards a certain behaviour, social norms and opinions regarding that specific activity, and individual perception of being in control of actions and respective outcomes (Visschers et al., 2016). A fundamental determinant of behaviours has been found to be personality traits, and researches have highlighted the direct relation between personality and behaviour (Conner & Abraham, 2001). Hence, some people may have a higher inclination than others to plan grocery shopping in advance and to stick to it, and results have found that conscientiousness is one of the strongest trait influencing behavioural control: the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) indicates cognition as a mediator between personality traits and behaviour, and highly conscientious individuals have been found to be more likely to display self-regulatory skills and to be more organized and careful, while those lower in conscientiousness are less prone to follow previous plans and to engage in intention formation and behave accordingly to it (Conner & Abraham, 2001). Additionally, De Groot & Steg (2007) in their work have highlighted how positive attitudes, subjective norms and higher perceived behavioural control are linked to a stronger likelihood to engage in more responsible behaviours. Thus, individuals higher in conscientiousness, who are associated with carefulness, responsibility, organisation and show a high level of self-discipline, competence and perfectionism (Milfont & Sibley, 2012), are expected to be more inclined to plan their grocery shopping trip and to follow the program, meaning that this trait is expected to enhance successfulness of the tool in reducing food waste.

Hypothesis 2a: Conscientiousness enhances the positive effect in food waste reduction of enhanced shopping lists.

the end of the grocery shopping trip, even when a shopping list has been employed (Massara et al., 2013), since the buyer has already employed most of his self-regulatory resources, and is now more likely to surrender to impulsive desires. Nevertheless, this uncontrolled buying behaviour may arouse a sense of guilt into the consumer, and in case of food items, those may not be (completely) consumed. This may subsequently increase food waste, and exceeding quantities may end up wasted anyway because beyond real needs. Some purchases are effectively a consequence of impulse buying, as a result of a sudden need or desire that the subject feel the urge to surrender to. Individuals higher in impulsiveness are more likely to perform actions quickly and unreflectively (Rousselle & Vigneau, 2013), and they are more prone to purchase items lead by the whim, thus exhibiting actual impulse buying. As a result, this trait is expected to diminish the effectiveness of shopping lists in reducing food waste:

Hypothesis 2b: Impulsiveness diminishes the positive effect in food waste reduction of enhanced shopping lists.

are likely to comply to the shopping list and the plan made ahead. Subsequently, it is interesting to investigate the influence it has on purchasing choices, as highly concerned persons are supposed to be more aware of the impact of food waste on the environment and more careful about the outcomes of their own actions (Fransson & Garling, 1999; Hirsh & Dolderman, 2007). Moreover, they will perceive it as an incentive to respect plans, since what is not on the list can easily be wasted, or can alter the meal plans made in advance, by increasing the chance of not consuming something else. Expectations are that a higher environmental concern would enhance the positive effect of shopping list employment on the reduction of wastage:

Hypothesis 3: Environmental concern enhances the positive effect in food waste reduction of enhanced shopping lists.

4. METHODOLOGY

In the next chapter the methodology approach employed in the research will be illustrated, by describe the process of data collection and the following process of data analysis that will help us to assess the results of the study.

4.1 Sample and data collection

For the data collection for this study, a field research was used. The research took place in November at the Albert Heijn in Eelde-Paterswolde, during a two-weeks period time. Participants were randomly chosen between supermarket customers who voluntarily took part in the experiment, and received the needed material for the investigation. At the handing-out moment, for the treatment group, each participant subject received the enhanced shopping list (see Appendix A) and a questionnaire: they had to prepare the shopping lists for the following week, precisely stating the product needed and the specific amount, and they had to employ it during the grocery shopping moment. Together with the needed purchase, subject also had to be as accurate as possible about the number of meals they intended to consume at home and the ones they envisaged to consume outside, in order to have a better overview and a more accurate prediction. The following week they had to evaluate whether or not the usage of the tool was indeed helpful to better structuring the needed products and reduce wasted items. For the control group, the participants only received the questionnaire and the food waste diary. 70 tools and questionnaires were handed out for each group: but in the end the respondents who returned the material were much less then the expectations, conditioning the outcome of the study.

4.2 Questionnaire and scales

examined. To assess weather or not the moderators have an influence on the main relationship scales were included to measure personality traits and believes: to determine which traits are predominant in the consumer personality, three different scales were employed (see Appendix B).

One of the personality traits that hypothetically could affect the effectiveness of the tool with in a positive way is conscientiousness. In order to measure the strength of this attribute the Conscientiousness Scale developed by MacCann et al. (2009) will be employed: it consist of a list of statement that participants will have to rate on a 5-point Likert scale from “Not at all like me” to “Very much like me”. When developing this instrument, the researchers identified different facets from the main trait, and, for the purpose of the study, in the questionnaire the statement related with only one of this facets will be employed, the Task planning one.

On the other hand, impulsiveness personality trait is hypothesized to lower the effectiveness of the employment of shopping list. To assess the degree of impulsivity in individuals, the Impulsiveness Scale developed by Puri (1996) will be used in this research: the scale consists of a list of single adjectives that the subjects will have to rate on a 7-points Likert scale from “Seldom would describe me” to “Usually would describe me”. When developing the scale, researchers individuate a two-factors hedonic-prudent model to achieve a better explanation of the results: each item of the scale is more strongly related to one of the two dimensions.

Impulsiveness scale: 1. Impulsive 2. Careless 3. Self-controlled 4. Extravagant 5. Farsighted 6. Responsible 7. Restrained 8. Easily tempered 9. Rational 10. Methodical Conscientiousness scale: 1. I am a goal-oriented person. 2. I do things according to a plan. 3. I follow a schedule.

4. I follow directions. 5. I like to plan ahead.

Adjectives 1, 2, 4, 8, 11 load high on the Hedonic dimension and a high score on them is related to stronger impulsive personalities, while for adjectives 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 12 high loadings are associated to the Prudence dimensions and are scored on a reverse scale, meaning that a high score correspond to low impulsive individuals. A factor analysis was conducted to assess the items loading on the two dimensions and to assess the most relevant one for the purpose of the study. The results lead to the choice of the Hedonic dimension, more immediately linked to Impulsiveness: exhibiting a KMO of 0.558, the factor analysis showed a high loading of all the items of the hedonic dimension on the factor, except item 11, that was left out.

In the study, environmental concern is taken into consideration as possible moderator for the effectiveness of the tool. To measure environmental concern, some scales have been developed, but just two of them have been widely employed, the Ecological Attitude Scale (EAS), developed by Maloney and Ward in 1973, and the Environmental Paradigm Scale (EPS), developed by Dunlap and Van Liere in 1978. Each one of them present an original and a shorter version, the second one slightly less reliable than the first one in both cases. The EAS has 45 items and is composed of four different scale: Verbal Commitment (VC) assessing what people state to be willing to do; Actual Commitment (AC) assessing what people actually do; Affect (A) assessing the emotionality towards the problem; Knowledge (K), assessing how much individuals know about environmental issues. The first three scale have been reported to be positively correlated and to have internal consistency, while the fourth is not correlated with the others. The other, the NPS is composed of 12 items used to measure the ‘new environmental paradigm’ (NEP), an assessment of pro-ecological attitude; it has been found to have sufficiently reliable, and a shorter version of only 5 items is also available (Fransson & Garling, 1999). To assess the strength of this attitude in participants’ mind set, here the modified New-Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale developed by Dunlap et al. (2000) has been employed. It consists of a 15 items list of statement that subjects will have to express their agreement with the statement on a 5-points Likert scale, from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”.

Environmental Concern Scale:

1. We are approaching the limit of the number of people the earth can support. 2. Humans have the right to modify the natural environment to suit their needs. 3. When humans interfere with nature it often produces disastrous consequences. 4. Human ingenuity will insure that we do NOT make the earth unliveable. 5. Humans are severely abusing the environment.

6. The earth has plenty of natural resources if we just learn how to develop them. 7. Plants and animals have as much right as humans to exist.

8. The balance of nature is strong enough to cope with the impacts of modern industrial nations. 9. Despite our special abilities humans are still subject to the laws of nature.

10. The so-called “ecological crisis” facing humankind has been greatly exaggerated. 11. The earth is like a spaceship with very limited room and resources.

13. The balance of nature is very delicate and easily upset.

14. Humans will eventually learn enough about how nature works to be able to control it.

15. If things continue on their present course, we will soon experience a major ecological catastrophe.

4.3 Scales validation

To assess whether the scales employed to measure the strength of the personality traits present internal consistency, and thus are valid, a reliability test has been conduced. Since the scales are composed of different items, each of them measuring different aspects of the overall scale, internal consistency is required to assess their validity (Malhotra, 2009). To analyse the output of the reliability test, it is necessary to check the Cronbach’s Alpha resulting from it. Its values range between 0 and 1, and according to Malhotra (2009) to indicate a satisfying internal consistency of the scale it has to be above 0,6. The analysis shown all the scales to be reliable, with the exception of the low Cronbach’s Alpha of the impulsiveness scale, that was though still considered as acceptable.

Cronbach’s

Alpha Mean Variance Std. Deviation N of Items Conscientiousness Scale .841 30.87 26.049 5.104 9 Impulsiveness Scale .586 10.32 10.292 3.208 4 Environmental Concern Scale .742 40.86 34.552 5.878 11 Table 1: Scale reliability analyses

For the conscientiousness scale, the Cronbach’s Alpha of .841 is high and satisfactory for all the items of the original scale:

For the Impulsiveness scale, since it presented two different dimensions, the factor analysis was conducted to assess which one to choose: the hedonic dimension was selected, and the factor analysis together with the reliability analysis lead to delete an additional item (item 11), leaving 4 residual items; nevertheless, even if the Cronbach’s is below the acceptance threshold, being .586, it is still acceptable, as it may be due to the small sample size: it has been found that larger samples produce a more accurate estimate, and that when the sample size is low the Cronbach’s Alpha can be more unstable (Yurdugul, 2008):

N Mi

n Max Mean Std. Deviation

1. Impulsive 31 2 7 3.84 1.157

2. Careless _{31 1 4 2.00 .931}

4. Extravagant _{31 1 6 2.16 1.241}

8. Easily tempered 31 1 5 2.32 1.423

Table 3: Descriptives Impulsiveness Scale

At last, the reliability analysis on the environmental concern scale lead to the removal of four items, 2, 4, 11 and 14 to reach a higher internal consistency, and the final Cronbach’s Alpha is satisfactory at .742:

N Min Max Mean Std. Deviation 1. We are approaching the limit of the number of

people the earth can support. 31 1 5 3.61 1.022 3. When humans interfere with nature it often

produces disastrous consequences. 31 1 5 3.68 1.045 5. Humans are severely abusing the environment.

30 1 5 3.47 1.306 6. The earth has plenty of natural resources if we just

learn how to develop them. 31 1 4 2.87 .885

7. Plants and animals have as much right as humans

to exist. 31 2 5 4.13 .922

8. The balance of nature is strong enough to cope

with the impacts of modern industrial nations. 31 2 5 3.97 .795 9. Despite our special abilities humans are still

subject to the laws of nature. 31 3 5 4.29 .793 10. The so-called “ecological crisis” facing

humankind has been greatly exaggerated. 31 1 5 3.81 1.078 12. Humans were meant to rule over the rest of

nature. 30 1 5 3.81 1.223

13. The balance of nature is very delicate and easily

upset. 31 2 5 3.80 .847

15. If things continue on their present course, we

will soon experience a major ecological catastrophe. 29 1 5 3.58 .958

Table 4: Descriptives Environmental Concern

4.4 Data analysis

5. RESULTS

In the following chapter the main findings of the study will be reported and discussed in details, to evaluate whether the hypothesis of this research have found a support in the data results or whether they will be rejected.

5.1 Descriptive statistics

In order to conduct the study, 70 questionnaires and tested tools were handed out for each condition, the control group and the enhanced shopping list. Nevertheless, the data collection phase was rather disappointing, as many individuals did not return the questionnaire. In total, the actual respondents were 31, 18 for the control group and 13 for the enhanced shopping list. On average, they mainly consist of mid-age individuals (50-60 years old), with some cases of young people or elderly. Within the group, 10 of them were men while 21 were women, which mainly achieved an HBO level of education, are salaried individuals, and on average can count on a mid-high income.

Most of the respondent spend 30 minutes or less for the average grocery shopping trip (23 out of 31), and do 1 big grocery trip per week (19 out of 31) and 2 top-up trips (12 out of 31). Almost all of the subjects engage in some kind of planning activity before going grocery shopping, either by thinking about what they are in need of, or by properly planning the future purchases some days in advance. The majority takes into account the stock level when planning the coming or weekly meal schedule and when writing the shopping list, and they overall show a high planning attitude Nevertheless, while most of them stated to use a list of each grocery shopping trip (19 out of 31), the majority does not strictly follow the plans, with a consistent group using it more as an indicator than as a rule (10 out of 31). The number of meals consumed outside or of the ready-to-eat ones is extremely reduced, probably as a consequence of the age group of the of the respondents.

5.1.1 Robustness check

significant. The One-Way ANOVA is performed to check whether there is a statistically significant difference between the means of the two intervention groups, the control group and the one which was subject to the treatment, the shopping list in this case (Malhotra, 2009), where the null hypothesis usually is that all means are equal. The four different tests employed two levels of both the independent and the dependent variable: at first the dependent variable taken into account was ‘total food waste’, and the independent variable tested were in one case ‘received shopping list’ and in the other ‘employed shopping list’; then the tested independent variable was ‘solid food waste’, again tested with both the two dependent variables, firstly ‘received shopping list’ and secondly ‘employed shopping list’.

Despite the fact that for all the four ANOVAs the level of significance was not satisfactory the highest significance was found for the model that the model where ‘received shopping list’ as the independent variable, and ‘total food waste’ as the dependent variable (p-value=0,376).

5.1.2 IV and DV descriptive

As a result of the ANOVA tests, ‘received shopping list’ was chosen as the independent variable: of the 31 respondents who returned the questionnaire, 13 received the shopping list, while 18 did not (Table 5).

Conversely, ‘total food waste’ was chosen as the dependent variable. The food waste amount ranges from a minimum of 0 to a maximum of 5254, with an observed mean of 1036,9 (Table 6). DV: Total Food Waste N Valid 31 N Missing 0 IV: Received Shopping List N Valid 31 N Missing 0

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Yes 13 41.9 41.9

No 18 58.1 58.1

Total 31 100.0 100.0

5254 0 5254 1036.9 775.00 210.002 1169.239 1367119.00

Table 6: Dependent Variable Descriptive

5.2 Effectiveness of the tool

The results of the One-Way ANOVA showed a difference between the amount of waste of the receiver of the shopping list and those who did not receive it.

When the shopping list was employed, the mean waste amount was of 813,85 grams, with a standard deviation of 642,969 and a standard error of 178,327, while when there was no list employment the mean food waste was 1198,00 grams, with a standard deviation of 1433,604 and a standard error of 337,904. The range of waste amount was between 0 and 1990 when the shopping list was used, and between 0 and 5254 when the shopping list not used. Nevertheless, despite the difference in the amount of waste, it turned out to be a non significant test, with F(1,29)=0,810 and p-value=0,376.

The linear regression is run using two control variables, ‘sex’ and ‘profession’, which were found to be possible influential factors also in previous research (Secondi et al., 2015): through a series of regression analysis, those two control variable have been found to be the only ones with a significant effect (p-value ‘profession’=0.056; p-value ‘sex’=0.192), all the other variables were all strongly non significant. For all the four variables, the multicollinearity value was below 0,4, showing that there is no multicollinearity.

R R square Adjusted R

square

F Sig.

.490 .240 .156 2.849 .056

MODEL Unstandardized B Unstandardized

Constant _{2207.836 1049.690 2.103 .045} Received Shopping List 229.518 396.960 .098 .578 .568 Sex - 589.814 423.205 - .240 -1.394 .175 Profession - 179.5521 83.768 - .364 -2.143 .041 Table 8: Linear regression shopping list effect

Analysing the results of the table, looking at the value of the Beta, it can be seen that the constant is positive, and the main variable ‘received shopping list’ present a positive correlation in the regression model, while both the control variables ‘sex’ and ‘profession’ have a negative correlation. The fact that the ‘received shopping list’ has a positive correlation goes against the hypothesis prediction, nevertheless it is not significant in the model (p-value=0.568), and thus it does not contradict the hypothesis. The most significant variable is ‘profession’ (p-value=0.041), with a Standardized Beta of -0.364. The R2 value of 0,240 and the R Adjusted of 0,156 show that the model is not enough explanatory of the relationship, and despite the fact that the F value and the p-value show the significance of the model (sig.=0,056), the hypothesis cannot be accepted.

5.3 Impact of the moderators

For each of the three moderators, a regression analysis was run to assess their impact on the relationship between the independent variable, ‘received shopping list’, and the dependent variable, ‘total food waste’. For all the scales the mean results have been employed, since they allow a clearer interpretation of the outcomes. As previously done, here as well two control variables were employed, ‘sex’ and ‘profession’, which did not display high level of collinearity.

At first, a regression model was performed to assess if the effectiveness of the enhanced shopping list was stronger in conscientious subjects.

Sex _{-696,401 409.442 - .281 -1.688 .104} Profession _{467,639 80.536 - .365 -2.235 .035} Conscientiousness Main Effect 1040,497 347.323 .332 1.970 .060 Interaction Effect Conscientiousness with Use of Shopping List 339,491 191.111 .185 1.108 .278 Table 9: Linear regression conscientiousness moderator

Looking at the table, it can be seen from the Beta that once again ‘received shopping list’ is positively correlated, but it is not significant in the model. The variable ‘sex’ and the constant, on the other hand, both present a negative correlation present a negative correlation, despite the first not being significant in the model. ‘Conscientiousness’ main effect and the interaction between the moderator and the use of the list present a positive correlation, meaning that the personality trait seems to increases the amount of food waste produced, though the last is not significant. Checking the R value of the model (R2=0.351 and R Adj=-0,221) it can be seen that the model is not a good explanation of the relationship, and even if the F value at the p-value still show a satisfying value (sig.=0.044), the second hypothesis cannot be accepted.

Secondly, another moderator analysis was performed to check whether the effectiveness of the use of shopping list was influenced by the impulsiveness level of individuals.

In this case, the two control variables both show a negative correlation in the model, while the constant and the variables ‘received shopping list’, ‘impulsiveness’ and impulsiveness interaction effect show a positive correlation, though they all show to be not significant in the model. Looking at the R values of the model (R2=0.321 and RAdj=-0.185), show that the model is not explanatory in this case one again, and also the third hypothesis, despite the acceptable F value and p-value (sig.=0,779), cannot be accepted.

At last, another regression was run to check if environmental concern leads to a higher effectiveness of the tested tool.

R R square Adjusted R square F Sig. .666 .444 .333 3.989 .008 MODEL Unstandardized B Unstandardized Std. Error Standardized Beta t Sig. Constant _{4267.805 1482.411 2.879 .008} Received Shopping List 315.182 369.123 .135 .854 .401 Sex _{-519.984 379.497 - .211 -1.370 .183} Profession _{-190.758 82.340 - .387 -2.317 .029} Environmental Concern Main Effect -586.074 367.314 - .261 -1.596 .123 Interaction Effect of Environmental Concern and Use of Shopping List -448.035 194.420 - .364 -2.304 .030 Table 11: Linear regression environmental concern moderator

5.4 Hypotheses test results

According to what previously discussed, the following conclusions can be drawn concerning the hypothesis findings:

Hypothesis 1: The use of an enhanced shopping list reduces

household food waste NOT SUPPORTED

Hypothesis 2a: Conscientiousness enhances the positive effect in

food waste reduction of enhanced shopping lists. NOT SUPPORTED

Hypothesis 2b: Impulsiveness diminishes the positive effect in food

waste reduction of enhanced shopping lists. NOT SUPPORTED

Hypothesis 3: Environmental concern enhances the positive effect

6. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

In this last chapter the main findings and conclusions of the research will be discussed in depth, together with some implications and recommendations that may be helpful to address the food waste problem. Furthermore, the limitations and the problems encountered in the process of the study will be illustrated, and possible suggestions aimed to improve future researches will be introduced.

6.1 General discussion

The aim of this research was to test whether or not the use of enhanced shopping lists could be a useful tool in reducing the problem of household food waste. To assess the potential effectiveness of an instrument in facing this issue is of critical importance today, keeping into account that while in one part of the world food waste is becoming a growing challenge, in other areas hunger is still an urgent question to face. In the end, only 31 persons within the sample returned the questionnaire, 13 for the treatment group and 18 for the control one, which gave a very small sample size and is one of the reason for the unsupportive results.

In the second hypothesis, the two different personality traits were expected to have opposite effects on the effectiveness of the shopping list. In hypothesis 2a it was expected that a high level of individual conscientiousness would have had positively affected the effectiveness of the shopping list. This assumption was not supported by results: probably due to the low sample size, that can lead to wrong results by influencing the interaction relationship (Bartlett, Kotrlik & Higgins, 2001), conscientiousness and list use both seem to increase the amount of waste production, and thus the influence of the personality trait is not as expected. This can also happen because conscientious individuals, being more prone to planning their future behaviour (Conner & Abraham, 2001), are probably already using a shopping list, with the consequence that the use of the enhanced shopping list does not add any further help in their planning activity. On the other hand, in hypothesis 2b it was expected that a high level of individual impulsiveness would have had negatively affected the effectiveness of the shopping list. Once again the use of the tested tool seems not to lead to the expected effect for the above mentioned reason, but conversely individuals which displays a high impulsiveness indeed reported a higher amount of household food waste, confirming the previous researches. It has been reported how this personality trait leads people to be more prone to surrender to sudden needs and to perform impulsive purchase, but also be more likely to display behaviour that can be linked to materialism and sensation seeking shopping behaviour, which will make them buy unneeded items (Muruganantham & Bhakat, 2013).

With regard to the third hypothesis, a high level of environmental concern was expected to positively affect the effectiveness of the enhanced shopping list. Similarly to what happened in the previous regressions, the tool was still proven to be not effective in the expected result, due probably to the low sample size that influences the outcome of the analysis. Nevertheless, highly environmentally conscious individuals have been found to produce a lower amount of food waste: this happens because environmentally concerned individuals might feel a stronger motivation to act in a way to prevent the environmental damage produced by the problem of food waste, and thus are more engaged in reducing it: this can happen because, as it has been delineated by other studies, there may be a strong relationship between environmental behaviour and general environmental believes, which may then further affect a wide range of behaviours (De Groot & Steg, 2007). Thus, when people are more aware of the consequences of their actions, they are more careful to the consequences of their actions, and feel a higher responsibility.

show the expected result or were not significant may have especially occurred because of the dimension of the sample: Bartlett et al. (2001) in their work highlight the importance of having the right data sample size, as an insufficient number of respondent prevent from being able to infer the results to a larger population and to successfully test the tool and the hypothesis. Moreover, it has been underlined that sample size is one of the four main feature of a study that have an impact on the detection of significant differences, relationships or interactions (Bartlett et al., 2001).

6.2 Managerial implications

Though most of the suggestions given in this research were not empirically supported, still some changes may be implemented to try to minimize food waste problem. As already mentioned, many external factors may interfere during consumers’ grocery shopping trips, which may cloud their judgement and induce them to perform superfluous buying. Companies’ and supermarkets’ marketers often implement strategies intended to increase their revenues, by inducing the consumer to make unplanned purchases or to purchase too large quantities. Unrecognized needs and desires may be triggered by these stimuli into the mind of the consumer, making him feel the need to fulfil them by buying other goods (Rook, 1997). Promotions are an example of these strategies: by offering consumer a product at a discounted price, or giving him the impression he is obtaining a great deal, they induce him to buy an item or to buy a larger quantity of it than he would have done if it would have had its regular price. While these offers may actually result in a bargain for durable products and help the buyer to save money, when they are applied to perishable products they may not be a good idea, since due to an improper storage or to forgetfulness of the purchase they might end up forgotten and they will be then discarded. The presence of this strategies can make it more difficult for some consumer to stick to the shopping list, and may diminish the effectiveness of this tool in reducing food waste, thus while planning these promotional strategies it would play an important role a more mindfulness thinking on behalf of the marketers. Specifically, many labels are now introducing “green” or “environmentally friendly” products, as they begin to realize the impact that this aware conduct has on their image and on customers’ actions, but they likewise might adopt policies intended to help consumers to identify the right way to shop reducing the waste.

within people’s house, it seems to be less influenced by social norms judgement compared to other “wrong” behaviours, and despite the fact that individuals are becoming more and more concerned with this issue, still many ignore the real damaging environmental consequences it causes. Government and institutions should try to invest more and to put an effort into effective campaigns and initiatives aimed at raising people’s awareness about the problem, in order to get people closer to understanding consequences of their own action, and to make them understand how they could behave to effectively help minimizing the issue.

6.3 Limitations and suggestions for future research